Monitoring the EU accession process: Corruption and Anti-corruption policy

This Overview and the accompanying country reports assess the extent of corruption in the candidate States of Central and Eastern Europe and the legal and institutional structures and policies with which Governments are seeking to combat it in light of the EU accession process and evolving EU norms and standards. All EU candidate States have made impressive progress towards establishing (or reestablishing) democracy, the rule of law and a market economy. However, the postcommunist transition has been troubled by corruption that has – or is at least perceived to have – persisted or flourished. The European Commission has repeatedly expressed concern at levels of corruption in candidate States, and has made it clear that making progress in the fight against corruption is a task all candidate States have to carry out in order to fulfil the conditions for EU membership.